PARIS: A French-Iranian academic held in Iran for the past three years in a case that has raised tensions between Tehran and Paris has returned to prison after a brief furlough, her supporters said.
Fariba Adelkhah was last week allowed to leave Tehran’s Evin prison for five days.
Hopes that the measure may be extended were not fulfilled, her support group said in a statement published late Sunday.
“Unfortunately, Fariba’s five-day leave was not extended, or transformed into house arrest,” it said. “It gave her a break, but it’s still bad news.”
Activists say that at least 20 foreign and dual nationals are being held by Tehran on baseless charges, in a deliberate policy of hostage diplomacy aimed at extracting concessions from the West.
Adelkhah’s temporary release comes at a crucial time in the negotiations between world powers and Iran over the Iranian nuclear program, with Tehran studying a final proposal from the EU aimed at salvaging a 2015 deal.
It is relatively common for prisoners in Iran to be allowed brief leave for time at home with families before returning to jail.
A specialist in Shiite Islam and a research director at Sciences Po university in Paris, Adelkhah was arrested in June 2019 along with her French colleague and partner Roland Marchal.
Adelkhah was sentenced in May 2020 to five years in prison for conspiring against national security, accusations her supporters say are absurd.
Marchal was released in March 2020 and Adelkhah was allowed home in Tehran in October 2020 with an electronic bracelet. But she was then sent back to prison in January 2022.
Iran last month allowed German-Iranian woman Nahid Taghavi, who was arrested in October 2020, a medical furlough to get treatment for back and neck problems.
Three other French nationals are also being held by Iran.
Benjamin Briere, who according to his family is simply a tourist, was arrested in May 2020 after taking pictures in a national park with a recreational drone and sentenced to eight years in prison on spying charges.
Meanwhile, French teachers’ union official Cecile Kohler and her partner Jacques Paris were arrested in early May on security-related charges, Tehran has said.
Iran insists the foreigners are given fair trials but their families claim they are being held as pawns in a political game.
French academic back in Iran prison after 5-day leave: supporters
https://arab.news/987gd
French academic back in Iran prison after 5-day leave: supporters
- Fariba Adelkhah was earlier allowed to leave Tehran’s Evin prison for five days
- Her temporary release comes at crucial time of nuclear program talks
UK ex-ambassador quits Labour over new reports of Epstein links
- Former prince Andrew, stripped of his royal titles last year over his ties to Epstein, was also named in the files released on Friday
LONDON: Former British ambassador to Washington Peter Mandelson quit the Labour Party Sunday, seeking to avoid causing it “further embarrassment” after newly released US documents revived scrutiny of his connection to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Mandelson, 72, who was sacked as Britain’s ambassador to the United States last year over his ties to Epstein, allegedly received several payments from Epstein in the early 2000s, according to documents released on Friday by the US Department of Justice and reported in British media Sunday.
“Allegations which I believe to be false that he made financial payments to me 20 years ago, and of which I have no record or recollection, need investigating by me,” Mandelson wrote in a letter to Labour general secretary Hollie Ridley.
“While doing this I do not wish to cause further embarrassment to the Labour Party and I am therefore stepping down from membership of the party,” he added, saying he felt “regretful and sorry about this.”
Bank records released by the US Justice Department suggest Epstein transferred a total of $75,000 (55,000 pounds) in three payments to bank accounts linked to Mandelson between 2003 and 2004.
Speaking earlier Sunday on the BBC, Mandelson said he had no memory of the transfers and did not know whether the documents were authentic.
Mandelson also appears in newly released, undated photographs, wearing a T?shirt and underwear beside a woman whose face has been redacted by US authorities.
He told the BBC he “cannot place the location or the woman and I cannot think what the circumstances were.”
Other documents suggest Epstein sent 10,000 pounds in 2009 to Reinaldo Avila da Silva, Mandelson’s partner, at a time when Mandelson was serving as a government minister.
The former ambassador was removed from his post in September after being appointed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer in late 2024.
Mandelson apologized in January for maintaining his friendship with Epstein, having initially refused to do so on the grounds that he was not complicit.
Former prince Andrew, stripped of his royal titles last year over his ties to Epstein, was also named in the files released on Friday.
A second woman alleged Sunday that Epstein sent her to Britain in 2010 for a sexual encounter with Andrew, her lawyer told the BBC.
